


Banker's Boxes

by SamanthaStephens



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Banker's Boxes, Layoffs, M/M, Meet (Again) Cute, Pink Slips, ad agency, work au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 17:39:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6480193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaStephens/pseuds/SamanthaStephens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Of course, it's all very well and good to be sanguine about the very real prospect of being let go when trying to reassure one's protoge. It's a good deal more difficult not to throw a childish tantrum when one's name actually gets called and one has to walk through the office and sit in a tiny interview room listening to two incredibly well-dressed suits review one's severence package." </p><p>Or, something funny happens on the way home from getting laid off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Banker's Boxes

Eames hears the rumors via a series of panicked text messages from his protege, Ariadne, while he's still waiting in the queue for the coffee cart outside. Apparently the suits are back and Jason from the mailroom saw a stack of banker's boxes being assembled by some temps in one of the third floor conference rooms. 

Doesn't that just bugger all? And he'd been having such a good week, too. 

He abandons all hope of coffee in favor of getting to his workstation before the chaos begins. Eames is practically an old hand at this by now. 

He doesn't have much advanced preparation to do in case he's among the unlucky ones this time. Surviving three rounds of layoffs teaches one to keep personal items off one's computer, to have one's portfolio updated at the end of each assignment, and to decorate one's surroundings with easily boxed items.

He goes straight to his standing desk and uploads all of the latest work for the Citrus Council onto two different memory sticks, hiding one in the lining of his satchel and the other in the innermost pocket of his favourite blazer. He'll be damned if he let's them take credit for his final work after giving him the sack.

With that sorted, he opens a blank Illustrator file and pretends to work. As his mind wanders, he draws a tiny red devil melting a perfect cone of strawberry ice cream by poking at it with a flaming pitchfork. There isn't a client on Eames' list that would require such a thing, but by now he knows that there isn't any point to trying to accomplish real work on a day like this.

He wears headphones, preferring to ignore the sure-to-be-increasing buzz of fearful gossip circulating the building.  But when Ariadne pops round his workstation, eyes wide with fear, he removes them and offers her a sympathetic shoulder squeeze. 

"Don't freak out, luv. Either it will happen or it won't. No point in suffering while you wait. That's letting them win."

"Keep calm and carry on, huh?"

"I swear to Christ, if I ever meet the person who made those bloody awful signs popular again, I will lose all sense of propriety and pummel him or her in the face with a rotary phone."

"I can't blame you; the design work is dreadful."

"Precisely. They should have remained a product of the 30s. Now, darling, please tell me everything is tidied away at your workstation and on your computer and tablet."

"Yes, _dad_. I'm all set to leave and never look back if that's what it comes to."

"Don't mock an old man for looking after you. You might come to regret it Monday if I'm no longer here to offer brilliant insights on your designs and buy your lunch at the end of the month when things are tight."

Ariadne looks stricken.

"Do you think you'll get cut?"

Eames frowns and decides on honesty rather than empty reassurance.  

"I'm quite certain you'll be fine. You don't make enough to bother with, frankly. But I fear my number might be up this time. Nearly everyone else at my paygrade is gone already."

"But you're the best designer we have! They can't get rid of you? Clients will walk. I know they will."

"If it comes to that, I hope some do, but if I've learned anything in this business, it's that we creatives are almost always dispensible if need be."

Of course, it's all very well and good to be sanguine about the very real prospect of being let go when trying to reassure one's protoge. It's a good deal more difficult not to throw a childish tantrum when one's name actually gets called and one has to walk through the office and sit in a tiny interview room listening to two incredibly well-dressed suits review one's severence package. 

Eames keeps his breathing even and tries to maintain a clear head so he can ask the appropriate questions. There are important things he needs to understand about his non-compete under present circumstances. 

The female suit is petite with close-cropped red hair and a straighforward demeanour. She knows spending time with her is unpleasant and she wants to make it as brief and informative as possible, Eames assesses. 

The male suit is handsome and smiles too much. He wants to be your friend as he sacks you on behalf of your cowardly employer. He thinks he's the good guy, putting everyone at ease in a difficult situation. 

Despite the fact that he'd probably use the same tactics were it his job to lay off poor souls on a sunny Friday morning, Eames hates him. And anyway, Eames would rather starve than take such a job. Having it is clearly a character flaw of some sort. 

Eames returns to his workstation with an empty banker's box and a folder full of documents detailing the circumstances of his elimination. 

He feels numb. 

He knows he'll find gainful employment again before too long. And he has funds to tide himself over in the meantime, between the severance, his savings, and a bit of an inheritance from his gran.  But it doesn't erase the sensation of having been chewed up and spit out by the company to which he'd dedicated a not inconsiderable portion of his life. 

The others hang back at first, probably afraid his condition is contagious. He chides himself for being uncharitable, remembering his own uncertainty about how to approach former colleagues in the immediate wake of them having lost their jobs. 

Finally a trickle of condolence offerers starts coming by as he removes everything from his work area and chooses to either box it up or chuck it out. 

Nearly everything ends up in the garbage, honestly, other than his favourite mug, his three best sets of old-school drawing pencils, his framed vintage advertising prints, and the lovely fountain pen with an opal in the cap that his mum gave him for graduation. 

It all looks a bit pathetic, but Eames has maintained a trim operation since the horrors following the first round of layoffs nearly two years previous, when Mallorie had lost all the photos of her trip to Spain from her hard drive and Dom had been here all night, with a security guard standing by on overtime pay, as he sorted through stacks and stacks of invoices for all of his freelancers, determining which to shred and which to hand off to some poor twat in accounting. 

He pops over to the kitchen to retrieve his electric kettle and personal supply of decent tea. He leaves the milk and sugar for the poor sods who will have to face a nearly empty floor come Monday morning. 

He dearly hopes, for her sake, that Ariadne is among them. The fact that he hasn't seen her yet gives him some sense of justice in this world. 

Just then, as if summoned by his thoughts, he rounds the corner and sees her standing hunched at his nearly empty station looking bleary eyed. 

"Oh luv, not you too?" he says. 

She looks up and bursts into tears. 

"Sweetheart, no, I promise I will do my utmost to get you settled somewhere else. It's not so bad."

He wraps a free arm around her shoulders and strokes her hair with affection, poor lamb. After he'd all but promised her safety, too. 

"It's not that," she snuffles. "It's ... They offered me a promotion. I ... I don't know if I should accept."

He laughs and she looks stricken. 

"Of course you should, darling. Of course. Please tell me you're getting my old job."

She nods shyly. 

"That is the only news that can make me feel better about today. Long overdue."

"So you're not mad?"

"Not in the least. I promise. I'll send you any outstanding files before I leave. Just about through tidying everything away here."

"Eames ... I couldn't have done any of this without you. How am I supposed to just ... take over your work as if it's nothing?" 

"Because that's how this goes. I'll land on my feet somewhere else. I promise. And in the meantime, if you ever feel like throwing any freelance dollars my way, give me a ring?"

She sniffles and nods grimly. 

He's honestly pleased for her. If he had to lose his job, there's no one he'd rather have it in his stead. 

They hug and promise to meet for brunch Sunday, after Eames spends the remainder of today getting spectacularly pissed and tomorrow recovering and feeling sorry for himself. 

Three quarters of an hour later he's heading for the lift one last time, ready to meet his fellow unemployed members of the art department at their favorite watering hole on the Lower East Side, with easy access to the L train. 

He's crossing the lobby, balancing his packaged up electric kettle on one hip and his banker's box on the other when he collides with someone weighed down with a stack of three of the damn things--clearly not a person who expected today to be his last in this office. 

Everything goes flying. 

"Ouch!" cries the other man at the same time as Eames curses quite loudly. 

He hopes his mug survived. And his framed prints. And the teakettle, honestly. 

He recognizes the fellow now that the tower of boxes is no longer blocking his face. His name is Arthur Hunt and he's one of the scary fuckers from the legal department.

Things have gotten very bad indeed if they're laying off the lawyers, Eames thinks.

He'd worked with Arthur once when some other firm had infringed on one of Eames' own designs. Arthur had been utterly terrifying and absolutely thorough and left the thieves a great deal poorer and quaking in their boots. 

Eames had had a bit of a crush on him, to be honest, but  he hadn't been able to tell for certain whether or not Arthur fancied men and then the opportunity had passed. 

The idea of hanging about the legal department, four floors away from Eames' own, in the hopes of bumping into Arthur and chatting him up hadn't been terribly convenient nor appealing. So he'd let the crush go until it was forgotten. 

But ... this opportunity could be a parting gift from the gods of Saito & Fischer. 

"I'm so sorry," Arthur apologises. "Eames, right?"

"Indeed. And you're Arthur, correct? It's a shock to see you among the casualties."

They scrabble around on the floor picking up the odds and ends of their crash that have managed to spread surprisingly far across the lobby. A wary looking security guard watches with increasing irritation. 

Eames can't help but laugh when he finds two pencils embedded in the potting soil of one of the oversized palms bracketing the lobby's ridiculous water feature. 

His mug is blessedly safe. And his opal pen is easily recovered. The glass on one of his vintage advertising prints is cracked, but Delilah at his favourite frame shop will fix it right up. All of his pencils are set to rights. He's not sure what condition the kettle is in, but it was boxed back into its original packaging, so how bad could it be? 

However Arthur's Japanese lily is looking decidedly worse for wear. Eames scoops some of the soil from the palm where his pencils landed and uses it to try to bolster the poor thing. 

The security guard clears his throat menacingly.

"Right then, I suppose even dirt counts as stealing company  property?" Eames notes and Arthur huffs a quiet laugh in return. 

Speak now or forever hold your peace, Eames thinks. 

"I think your poor lily is in need of some medical attention," he jokes. "I feel responsible. May I buy you a drink by way of apology?"

"I'm the one who crashed into _you_ ," Arthur replies. His voice is deadpan but he's smiling. 

"Well then _you_ can buy me a drink by way of apology for my cracked frame."

Arthur laughs again, full and rich this time. 

"Yeah, OK."

Despite everything that's happened in the last few hours, Eames' heart flutters. 

"Brilliant. Now my artistic cohert is down at The Ward. And I suspect your unlucky colleagues are off somewhere else. But I propose we strike out on our own. Misery loves company and all, but not too much company."

Arthur scratches the tip of his nose and it's adorable. 

"We can go wherever you want, but do you mind stopping by my place first? It's just a few blocks south and I really don't want to be worrying about all this stuff all night."

"Not a problem. Lead the way."


End file.
